In the case of this, as of our other moral sentiments, there is no
necessary connection between the question of its origin, and that of
its binding force. That a feeling is bestowed on us by Nature, does
not necessarily legitimate all its promptings. The feeling of
justice might be a peculiar instinct, and might yet require, like
our other instincts, to be controlled and enlightened by a higher
reason. If we have intellectual instincts, leading us to judge in a
particular way, as well as animal instincts that prompt us to act in a
particular way, there is no necessity that the former should be more
infallible in their sphere than the latter in theirs: it may as well
happen that wrong judgments are occasionally suggested by those, as
wrong actions by these. But though it is one thing to believe that
we have natural feelings of justice, and another to acknowledge them
as an ultimate criterion of conduct, these two opinions are very
closely connected in point of fact. Mankind are always predisposed
to believe that any subjective feeling, not otherwise accounted for,
is a revelation of some objective reality. Our present object is to
determine whether the reality, to which the feeling of justice
corresponds, is one which needs any such special revelation; whether
the justice or injustice of an action is a thing intrinsically
peculiar, and distinct from all its other qualities, or only a
combination of certain of those qualities, presented under a
peculiar aspect. For the purpose of this inquiry it is practically
important to consider whether the feeling itself, of justice and
injustice, is sui generis like our sensations of colour and taste,
or a derivative feeling, formed by a combination of others. And this
it is the more essential to examine, as people are in general
willing enough to allow, that objectively the dictates of justice
coincide with a part of the field of General Expediency; but
inasmuch as the subjective mental feeling of justice is different from
that which commonly attaches to simple expediency, and, except in
the extreme cases of the latter, is far more imperative in its
demands, people find it difficult to see, in justice, only a
particular kind or branch of general utility, and think that its
superior binding force requires a totally different origin.

  To throw light upon this question, it is necessary to attempt to
ascertain what is the distinguishing character of justice, or of
injustice: what is the quality, or whether there is any quality,
attributed in common to all modes of conduct designated as unjust (for
justice, like many other moral attributes, is best defined by its
opposite), and distinguishing them from such modes of conduct as are
disapproved, but without having that particular epithet of
disapprobation applied to them. If in everything which men are
accustomed to characterise as just or unjust, some one common
attribute or collection of attributes is always present, we may
judge whether this particular attribute or combination of attributes
would be capable of gathering round it a sentiment of that peculiar
character and intensity by virtue of the general laws of our emotional
constitution, or whether the sentiment is inexplicable, and requires
to be regarded as a special provision of Nature. If we find the former
to be the case, we shall, in resolving this question, have resolved
also the main problem: if the latter, we shall have to seek for some
other mode of investigating it.

  To find the common attributes of a variety of objects, it is
necessary to begin by surveying the objects themselves in the
concrete. Let us therefore advert successively to the various modes of
action, and arrangements of human affairs, which are classed, by
universal or widely spread opinion, as Just or as Unjust. The things
well known to excite the sentiments associated with those names are of
a very multifarious character. I shall pass them rapidly in review,
without studying any particular arrangement.

  In the first place, it is mostly considered unjust to deprive any
one of his personal liberty, his property, or any other thing which
belongs to him by law. Here, therefore, is one instance of the
application of the terms just and unjust in a perfectly definite
sense, namely, that it is just to respect, unjust to violate, the
legal rights of any one. But this judgment admits of several
exceptions, arising from the other forms in which the notions of
justice and injustice present themselves. For example, the person
who suffers the deprivation may (as the phrase is) have forfeited
the rights which he is so deprived of: a case to which we shall return
presently. But also,

  Secondly; the legal rights of which he is deprived, may be rights
which ought not to have belonged to him; in other words, the law which
confers on him these rights, may be a bad law. When it is so, or
when (which is the same thing for our purpose) it is supposed to be
so, opinions will differ as to the justice or injustice of
infringing it. Some maintain that no law, however bad, ought to be
disobeyed by an individual citizen; that his opposition to it, if
shown at all, should only be shown in endeavouring to get it altered
by competent authority. This opinion (which condemns many of the
most illustrious benefactors of mankind, and would often protect
pernicious institutions against the only weapons which, in the state
of things existing at the time, have any chance of succeeding
against them) is defended, by those who hold it, on grounds of
expediency; principally on that of the importance, to the common
interest of mankind, of maintaining inviolate the sentiment of
submission to law. Other persons, again, hold the directly contrary
opinion, that any law, judged to be bad, may blamelessly be disobeyed,
even though it be not judged to be unjust, but only inexpedient; while
others would confine the licence of disobedience to the case of unjust
laws: but again, some say, that all laws which are inexpedient are
unjust; since every law imposes some restriction on the natural
liberty of mankind, which restriction is an injustice, unless
legitimated by tending to their good. Among these diversities of
opinion, it seems to be universally admitted that there may be